AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX - VERSTAPPEN AND HAMILTON CRASHED-OUT, AND PEREZ, VETTEL AND GASLY INHERIT THE GLORY!!!

 

A Very Big Congratulations to Team Red Bull and Sergio Peres, for making it P.1, and Team Aston Martin and Sebastian Vettel, and Team Alpha Tauri and Pierre Gasly, for making it to P.2 and P.3 respectively, at the end of the AGP.

It was great to see the affable and great Sebastian Vettlel making a long delayed Podium finish, as it was to see Perez making his debut win for his new Team, and Pierre doing his thing for Alpha Tauri.

Yes, I have said it on a number of occasions; that a Formula 1 Grand Prix is never finished until the first racer greets the Checkered Flag. 

And so it was, again, in literally the last few dying laps of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the Baku Circuit on Sunday4th June 2021. 

That, with only a few laps to go, and the Intrepid Max Verstappen at the head of the pack of what, at the time, seemed an unassailable lead destined to be his third Formula 1 win for the 2021 season . That fate, most cruelly, intervened and brough a drastic and spectacular end to his race.

Yes, it is true that anything can sometime does happens to slow or even destroy a racer's lead.  

But it was just a few more laps to go before Max would, should have been waving to the the person with the CF, and triumphantly waving his fist to his Red Bull Team. 

How was he, we to know that Fate had something very different, very  cruel form Max? 

Who would have known that his left rear tyre would have exploded and violently catapulted his car along the circuit, before it came to a sudden stop?  

How was any of us to know that Fate intended to mete out to Max the same kind of fate that it delivered some laps earlier to Lance Stroll, but to do so when Max was so so close to greeting the Checkered Flag. 

I mean, what had Max done to have such a cruel fate meted out to him? 

Something that Lewis Hamilton, though unbeknown to him at this point, would be poignantly asking himself during the 50th lap of the race. 

As he also took flight from what seemed, at the time, a race he was destined to finish in a P.1 or P.2 position. 

At least, before the gods decided to balance the scales of fate for him, so as to ensure that Max's misfortune would not, on this occasion, ended up being his, Hamilton's good fortune.

An event which was to remove the threat which Hamilton had been subjecting Sergio Perez to, and left the latter to take advantage of the misfortune the gods, in their seemingly cruel jesting with Max and Lewis, meted out to them.

And what should be my conclusion about the Azerbaijan Grand Prix? Just that it was not a great race, but it was exciting because of the number of incidents and its predictable unpredictability.

Now shall we look forward to what might transpire to be the resumption of 'normal service' at the next race, the French Grand Prix.